For better or for worse?: Education and the prevalence of domestic violence in Turkey

We exploit a change in the compulsory schooling law in Turkey to estimate the causal effects of education on the prevalence of domestic violence. By adopting a regression discontinuity design, we find that the reform increased women’s schooling by one year to one-and-a-half years and improved their labor market outcomes, with particularly strong effects for women raised in rural areas. The increase in education among rural women led to an increase in self-reported psychological violence and financial control behavior, without changes in physical violence, partner characteristics, or women’s attitudes towards such violence.